


Movement

by irfire



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Body Dissociation, Body Worship, F/F, Light Angst, Mention of past trauma, Mutual Healing, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Vaginal Fingering, gideon is resurrected!, our favorite fandom conceit, they are actually sweet to each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:15:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29348013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irfire/pseuds/irfire
Summary: “Ah, so now the truth comes out does it?” Gideon adjusted her bag over her shoulder, “The ever pious Harrowhark watching two sweaty ladies wail on each other with hunks of metal instead of doing her homework. What would the great aunts say?”“I’d clarify,” Harrow said carefully, “that I like watchingyou.”
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 9
Kudos: 138





	Movement

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a fill for a prompt about body worship and grew into some more character study, some gentle angst, and lots of mutual healing. 
> 
> Much gratitude to Morike9 for beta-ing and saving me from the tiny monster that lives in me and punctuates dialogue with total chaos.

Camilla was going easy on her. She fought with the intensity of a lone woman battling through a world on fire, but turned down about 70% so she didn’t straight up murder Gideon on impact. Camilla whirled into a strike as Gideon barely managed to parry and wheeled off balance on her back foot. This match was going to be over in thirty seconds, twenty if Cam was a little less gentle than she had been previously.

After spending over a year out of commission and briefly haunted, Gideon’s body moved like a rusty ball bearing. Everything caught and snagged. Muscles that used to be strong felt like old twine gone threadbare in the middle. Gideon’s body was technically healthy, her newly discovered divinity and lyctorship meant she was radiantly alive, but she felt a half step behind. Some mornings she woke up confused, unable to shake the thought that she was just a revenant shoved back into a body everyone tried to convince her was hers.

“I yield, yield!” Gideon yelped as a short sword landed, touching her sternum point first. Her back was basically against the wall. Twenty-five seconds. Not bad. 

Camilla exhaled and stepped back, sheathing her swords in one fluid movement. “Good match, you’re moving faster.”

Gideon hauled her panting ass to a chair propped up against the far wall of the gym and sat down, sheathing her sword and downing half a bottle of water. She wiped her mouth and grinned over at Camilla who had barely even broken a sweat, “I still feel like a loose bag of dusty old ninth house bones, but sure as hell tighter than when I woke up.” 

Camilla shrugged and walked over to pick up her water bottle from beside Gideon, “You literally died and you haven’t even been on your feet for a full year. Cut yourself some slack.” 

“Oh trust me, this body is full of slack Cam. Got yards and yards of slack. Slack city over here.” Gideon tipped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, breathing heavy. Some sprints, body weight training, light lifting, and a round of sparring hadn’t taken this much out of her since she was a toddler. She had to concentrate so hard to make her limbs move, individually tracing each thread that held her together every time she swung her sword. She longed for her old musculature, easy and robust. The sensation of landing a blow, of strength flexing and coiling in every inch of her. 

Her right side tickled with a sudden awareness and she looked over to see Harrow, still sitting on old bleachers, staring right at her. She’d been reviewing Blood of Eden reports since Gideon and Cam started warming up, and her single minded focus was rarely broken. Now her golden eyes glowed and fixed on Gideon’s sweating, exhausted body. 

Harrow’s face looked different now, permanently devoid of face paint. She was skinny and narrow and sharp and looked so much older than she should. Up close Gideon could see strands of grey that had infiltrated her black hair before her lyctorship, preserving the remnants of lifetime's worth of stress that began at birth. It stunned Gideon every day to see her alive, speaking, working, and making eye contact. Every time she looked at her, really looked at the set of her jaw and curve of her shoulders, something exhaled inside her, long and slow. _It had been worth it._

Harrow had been in a near coma for the first two months that Gideon was alive again. After she finally regained consciousness she spent a month confused, unable to track reality, skipping in and out of time. She broke down every time Gideon was in the same room. Gideon’s gut had been tangled in on itself and she’d wanted to scream, one long uninterrupted howl, until something changed. No matter what she did, comforting or yelling, Harrow had just kept on shrieking and crying and shaking. 

Slowly, Harrow began to calm. She’d been able to look at Gideon, touching her hesitantly to see if she was real. She didn’t speak for a while but trailed Gideon, following her ghostlike through the halls of the Blood of Eden compound. There was no conversation about it, they’d crossed an event horizon and were permanently in each other’s orbit. Eventually Harrow started to speak. She’d flinched for a while like her words were sharp, each one cutting her mouth as she pushed them off her tongue. Gideon had been a mixed multitude of feelings: scared, angry, rapt, thankful, and confused. She’d listened and listened and eventually it didn’t seem to hurt Harrow to speak. Eventually they just _talked_ to each other.

Not long after she started speaking on a quiet night Harrow crawled into Gideon’s bed and there she’d stayed. Gideon remembered Harrow’s fearful nights on the Mithraeum, terror had rippled like fog down the well she’d spent that year stuck inside. At first Gideon couldn’t relax near her, worried she’d disappear. Worried she’d wake up and Harrow would be screaming and wailing again. That she’d stop speaking. That Gideon would lose herself and slide down slick walls in the back of Harrow’s mind to drown over and over again. Instead, Harrow just lay down at a safe distance every night, and after she fell asleep she would inch into Gideon’s arms. They’d wake up in a tangle. Gideon learned to lean into the warmth and slept. 

It was a nascent and precarious thing, a delicate equation of gratitude and old wounds. Gideon had gone for a glass of water in the night and when she returned Harrow was sitting up, panicked and hyperventilating. She let Gideon hold her while she was still conscious. Harrow looked at her wildly, at the deep black eyes she used to see in the mirror and gripped Gideon’s face to crash their lips together. Harrow cried and Gideon kissed her back. After that, they kept kissing each other as a way to promise that neither of them would spontaneously combust and leave the other alone. After a while it just felt good, like safety. 

The kisses hadn’t arrested Gideon’s anger though. Their sudden proximity fanned a burning wick that spread through every inch of her. Her hunger to be as close to Harrow as possible mixed with nearly two decades’ worth of desperation and dejection, anger and outrage. It was a stomach churning cocktail that had spent the last year fermenting and echoing up the walls of that fucking drowning well. Not long after that first kiss they’d fought. If they’d been children it would have been bloody. As adults it was just brutal. Gideon yelled at Harrow and Harrow held her own for a bit before something ripped open in her and she sunk to her knees. The air went out of Gideon’s diaphragm like she’d been punched. Head in her hands Harrow washed a thousand apologies up on Gideon’s shores. Eventually she wrapped her arms around herself and she let Gideon wade into an ocean of her grief. The cracks that began nearly two years ago in the waters of Canaan house’s pool were too big, and Harrow’s walls split and fell with a resounding crash. Something happened in those waters, a chemical reaction finally unearthed something deep in both them that had been clawing its way to the surface for months.They slept together. 

Then they’d done it again. And again. 

Every morning they woke up was no small miracle. They began to learn the shape of this new tie that split them both down the middle and roped them together. Lyctorhood? Gideon certainly didn’t feel like a lyctor, but her cuts and scrapes and bruises healed in seconds, before she could even process the pain of the injury. She could sense Harrow even when they weren’t in the same room. She heard more. Saw more. Even though she felt like a bag of poorly matched bones every time she moved her body Camilla had been shocked at her progress. Gideon went from relearning how to walk to being able to fight again in under four months. It frustrated her to no end. If she was physically healthy why would she sometimes think _dodge right_ and her body would halt or drop or lunge the opposite direction? Camilla was convinced that Gideon’s soul was still a reluctant tenant, relearning the new space. 

They were different, both of them. Every day Harrow seemed less like a walking explosion and more human. She always looked exhausted, but Gideon saw her smile. Gideon heard her go breathy and soft when she touched her. She touched Gideon gently now, even as her hands sometimes shook. 

Gideon glanced up at the gym’s clock. It was late. Gideon and Cam had taken to sparing before bed so that Gideon had some hope of sleeping through the night. If she got herself tired enough she could fall into a sleep deep enough the nightmares didn’t wake her. She 

“Okay Cam, I think that’s it for the night. I’m fucking beat. You did it, you kicked the awake out of me.” Gideon heaved herself up and began to tuck her water and towel and sheathed offhand daggers and knuckle knives into a gym bag. 

Cam had started wrapping her knuckles and looked up, flashing Gideon a smile. “Maybe one of these months you’ll be up to learning how to box. I’d love to fight something other than a bag some night.” 

“Do you ever sleep, Hect? Like, _ever?_ Every time I see you, you’re either tolerating the most boring meetings on the face of the planet or working out.” Gideon slung the bag over one aching shoulder and picked up the longsword in its scabbard, resting it against the other shoulder.

Something passed over Camilla’s face for the briefest moment before she shrugged and wound the fabric between her first and second knuckle. “I sleep enough, Nav. Now get out of here before I decide to make you start doing laps again.” 

“Yeah, okay message received. I’ll see you at 8:00 for our morning session?” Cam grunted affirmatively before she started digging around in her bag for gloves. 

Gideon looked towards the door out of the gym and Harrow was already standing there, a tablet tucked under one arm. She still dressed all in black, but in standard issue BOE canvas pants, boots, and long sleeve shirt that tucked in at a simple black belt cinched tightly to keep her waistband over narrow hips. No more Reverend Daughter regalia. The only bones were in her ear piercings. Her hair grew with reckless abandon, swept up behind her head in a haphazard bun. Gideon was still adjusting to seeing her face bare, light brown skin stretched over high cheekbones and dark shadows under her eyes instead of grease paint. 

“What’s up, my sepulchral scion? You get through the 800 boring ass reports they gave you?” 

Harrow sighed like she was trying to perform exasperation but her heart just wasn’t in it. “They’re fine.” Her eyes tread briefly up Gideon’s body. She only needed an instant to take Gideon in, dressed nearly the same as her but with a soaked short sleeve shirt that clung to her, red curls sweaty and pushed out of her face. Gideon felt where her gaze caught and pressed into her as they made eye contact. 

Gideon’s breath hitched and she smiled, small and crooked. “Yeah, just fine? You enjoy sitting up there reading while I work my ass off?” Harrow watched as Gideon walked past her, pushing the door open with her hip and holding it open for her. 

“I enjoy getting my work done, yes.” Harrow joined her in the hallway, sticking close as they walked towards the compound's sleeping quarters. There it was, that hint of a smile growing in the corners of Harrow’s mouth. “I also enjoy seeing you work your ass off.” 

“Ah, so now the truth comes out does it?” Gideon adjusted her bag over her shoulder, “The ever pious Harrowhark watching two sweaty ladies wail on each other with hunks of metal instead of doing her homework. What would the great aunts say?” 

“I’d clarify,” Harrow said carefully, “that I like watching you.” She looked over at Gideon as she pushed a heavy door that led to the dark cool night and held it open. Gideon walked through, their bodies, for a long brief moment, only inches apart. A charge of proximate energy seemed to jump from Harrow across the narrow gap into Gideon, a pleasant tingle unfolding itself across her solar plexus and down towards her belly.

“Yeah?” Gideon stepped across the well trampled dirt path towards the block of low buildings where their quarters were. “You like what you see Nonagesimus?” 

The smaller woman looked at her with such intensity Gideon had no idea how she kept walking without running into anything. “I think you know the answer to that, Nav.”  
  
Gideon shrugged, a skip almost slipping into her step. “I dunno, I was never the brains in this operation; better spell it out to make sure the brawn gets it.”  
  
Harrow slowed as they neared the entrance to their block, reaching the door and turning to face Gideon head on. “Do you actually want me to spell it out for you?” 

Harrow stood between her and the door and she could feel her whole body heat up. “You mean do I want you to explain to me exactly how much you like seeing me swing around that stupid poorly balanced sword Blood of Eden scrounged up for me? Yeah Harrow, of course I do.”  
  
Turning around, Harrow pulled an access card out of her pocket and scanned it. She pushed the door open, her back towards Gideon, and they walked to their small, shared room. 

When the door had closed behind them Gideon hung her bag on the hook, leaned the longsword up against the wall and she turned around practically into Harrow. Gideon grinned as the five foot nothing woman in front of her pressed her back against the door. Harrow was on her tiptoes (which Gideon would never get over), her whole body flush against her.

Her lips hovered an inch over Gideon’s. “You’re something else with that sword, Griddle.”

Gideon shuddered as Harrow’s hands moved down her sides and her lips closed the distance between them. Harrow’s lips were firm and Gideon leaned down into her, hands coming to Harrow’s face, pressing hard into the kiss. Harrow made the smallest sound while Gideon kept her close, palms hot on her cheeks and fingers wrapping around towards the back of her neck. 

Harrow slid her hands up Gideon’s stomach, over her breasts, and landed at the flat of her chest as she pushed the other woman back, breaking their lips apart. Her breath was coming slightly ragged and she looked up. “Bed, now.” 

Gideon ran a hand into Harrow’s hair and undid the bun, black hair falling around Harrow’s shoulders over her fingers. It would never stop being new, and hot, to have this much proximity to Harrow — this much tacit power over her. Gideon let a finger brush over Harrow’s cheek, feeling the softness of her skin under the pad of her thumb, “Is that how you ask for something? You just demand it?”

Frustration bubbled up over Harrow’s face, palms pushing against Gideon’s sternum. That push made Gideon want to pull, and she knew Harrow was trying to goad her into a physical struggle but she didn’t take the bait. She leaned in, lips close to Harrow’s neck. “I know you know how. Ask me nicely.” 

Gideon could feel Harrow’s breath catch in her throat, running her lips up to the other woman’s jaw. When Harrow finally murmured, barely a whisper, “ _Please_ , Gideon — is that what you want?” She could feel the vibration against her lips more than she could hear her. 

“All I’ve ever wanted,” Gideon said, hands leaving her hair and skimming over her back, over her ass, hoisting her up. Harrow yelped (Gideon would remind her of that later) and instinctively wrapped her legs around Gideon’s waist. Gideon was one big grin as she pushed forward, carrying Harrow to the bed and lightly tossing her on her back before following, tugging her soaked shirt off and over her head on her way down. 

Gideon slid her leg up between Harrow’s, moving to kiss her when Harrow pressed her weight up and pushed just hard enough to knock Gideon off balance. Gideon laughed out loud and let the waif of a woman strain to flip them over and shove her onto her back, straddling her hips. “Well, my midnight mistress—” Gideon rested her hands behind her head and crossed her legs “—seems like you got me right where you wanted me, huh? See what some manners can do? Consider this positive reinforcement.” 

Harrow was only partially listening, gaze fixated on the jugular notch of her neck where collar bones and shoulder muscles began to bleed in the broadness of her chest. One hand came up, fingers soft, and traced the line of Gideon’s shoulder. The other ran over the swell of Gideon’s left bicep. Gideon watched her, a shiver rolling down her spine. Harrow traced her collarbone, dipping her fingers into the hollow that formed when Gideon breathed. Her other hand moved to the line of Gideon’s side, tracing past her sports bra and to the top of her stomach. 

“Harrow?” Gideon’s voice was quiet. Harrow’s fingers moved like ghosts, pressing enough Gideon knew she was there but lightly, like if she was any firmer her fingers might pass right through her. 

Slowly Harrow leveled her gaze at Gideon’s face, taking in her former inky iris’ oozing a warmth they’d never had when Harrow looked through them. “I’d like,” Harrow said, fingers crossing to her other collar, “to spell it out for you.” 

Gideon barely had time to process what she just said before Harrow slipped off of her, and let both her hands run down Gideon’s stomach to her hips, down her leg crossed on top. Fingers brushed thighs, one hand on either side, down to her knee towards her calves, and then to the tops of her boots. Gideon thought she was going to give her hell for not taking them off before they got into bed, but instead she began to slowly and methodically undo the laces. 

Harrow worked one boot, then the other off and Gideon was silent. She didn’t know what Harrow was doing as she pulled each sock off and set both pairs on the floor next to the bed. She leaned up then, hands making the same quick but careful work of her belt and then she was pulling Gideon’s pants off and folding them neatly to set on the floor next to her boots. 

Harrow was fully dressed except for her boots (Gideon wondered when she’d had time to take those off), and Gideon was nearly naked before her in just a sports bra and short black underwear. “Is this what you wanted, Harrow?” Gideon’s voice was low and inflected with a growing tint of desire “Is your thing getting a hot sweaty swordswoman naked and confused under you?” 

“My _thing,_ ” Harrow said, moving one of Gideon’s legs and shifting so she was sitting between both the woman’s thighs, “is _you_ , is your body. Alive, whole, and in one piece. My _thing_ ,” she dipped her face forward, hands on both of Gideon’s sides as she pressed a kiss to her stomach, “is watching you move. My _thing_ , Gideon, is all of you. Every inch of you.”  
  
It was rare that Gideon couldn’t speak, couldn’t at least bang two rocks together to spark a trashy joke. But here she was, head filled with a pleasant static. A warm tide began to grow and wind its way through her, pooling under Harrow’s lips and just a bit lower. Letting out a soft sound, she tipped her head back and let a hand play absentmindedly in Harrow’s hair. 

Gideon felt Harrow smile ever so softly as her lips worked downwards, over her hip and kissing along her thigh. Her movements were slow, feeling as much of Gideon’s skin as she could. “I thought—” she breathed quietly between kisses, “Gideon, I saw you die.” She kissed downwards, “And yet—” her lips grazed the top of Gideon’s knee “—I watched you lift a sword today.” 

Harrow traced the surprisingly sensitive inside of Gideon’s knee. She worked her way down, inch by inch, to her ankle. Gideon looked up, turned on and startled as Harrow adjusted slightly, and kissed down the top, then the arch of Gideon’s foot. “I would have given my life in a heartbeat to see you move again.” Her lips on the ball of Gideon’s heel. “I begged for you back, Gideon and here you are.” Kisses spread along each part of her that touched the ground. “I could spend my whole life on my knees and never—” her breath fanned hot against Gideon’s Achilles' tendon “—offer enough gratitude.”

Looking down at Harrow, seeing the other woman at her feet, putting herself so willingly at Gideon’s mercy made her ache. Opening herself up, spilling out the vulnerable truth that Harrow _wanted_ made Gideon feel like she was at the door of a forbidden place, blood rushing as a rock rolled away. Gideon wanted Harrow’s confession like she wanted her hands curling inside her. Not of her sins, which Gideon was mostly intimately familiar with, but of her _self._ Her wholeness, the broken pieces unearthed and splayed out, trusting, in front of her. 

“Fuck, Harrow,” Gideon groaned as Harrow’s lips began to move up, this time following the inside line of her other thigh. Her voice was breathy, Harrow’s lips beginning a slow journey up Gideon’s femoral artery. “Promise me, no more of this dying shit, okay? I stay alive, you stay alive, and we—” She broke off with a stutter, Harrow’s hands pushing Gideon’s thighs open. “We keep each other alive.” 

Harrow’s mouth ran dangerously close to her warm center before continuing up the core of her body. She kissed and dragged her fingers to Gideon’s stomach where she explored, leaving no inch of her untouched. “Watching you move—” Harrow’s breath fanned out hot over Gideon’s skin “—I can’t even tell you what it’s like.” Harrow kissed up her sternum, one hand sliding under the band of Gideon’s bra and the other over the muscles of her upper arm. 

Harrow shifted and Gideon could feel Harrow watching her. When she met her gaze the eye contact washed over her like steam behind a door suddenly pulled open. Gideon was hot all over and her world narrowed down to just the woman in front of her, to the way her hands pulled the blood in her veins rushing up to the surface. Harrow tugged at the front of the bra and Gideon immediately sat up, pulling it off and pressing forward to kiss Harrow. She swore she could feel a smile against her lips just before she gasped, Harrow rubbing a nipple lightly between two of her fingers. Gideon’s hands reached out instinctively behind her, steadying herself and Harrow pressed forward, still between Gideon’s legs.

“Watching you fight.” Harrow’s mouth left hers and Gideon made a soft disappointed sound, Harrow’s breath washed over Gideon’s ear. “Watching you _move_ , I want it to be because of me.” Her lips dipped down the column of Gideon’s neck and both her hands were on her now, cupping her breasts, relishing the feeling of soft skin under her finger tips. “I could watch you all day and then,” she lifted her lips back to Gideon’s, “You would move against my hands all night.” 

“Harrow.” Gideon’s voice trembled, and she felt herself arching into the other woman, her hips rolling up. She was honey, thick and pliable, sticky and sweet under Harrow’s hands. 

Slowly, Harrow’s hands flattened out and she pressed Gideon back onto the bed. She followed her down, her knee replacing where Gideon’s had been earlier, pressing between her legs. Harrow was flush against her, hands traveling outwards and exploring the cords of Gideon’s arm muscles, following them up to where they rested just above her head. Her touch reverent and unwavering, her kisses a steady and unrelenting tide of desire on Gideon’s lips. 

Gideon moved against Harrow, her whole body straining to get as much contact as she could. One of Harrow’s hands left, moving downwards and Gideon grasped desperately at Harrow’s back. 

A shudder rolled through Gideon’s whole body at the feeling of Harrow’s hand dipping under the waistband of her underwear. “I want to make you move, Gideon, all of you.”

Even through the viscous haze of desire Gideon found enough self possession to breathe out a grin. “Ask nicely.” 

Harrow’s mouth moved to her ear. “ _Please,_ Gideon.”

Gideon’s moan was the only answer Harrow needed. She shifted back, reaching to pull Gideon’s underwear away. Gideon made a soft sound, Harrow’s weight no longer over her. The smaller woman settled herself between Gideon’s thighs and pressed reverent kisses along her innermost thighs. 

Gideon was a hazy spread of pleasant static under Harrow’s breath and hands. Her hips rolled with a desperation to feel every inch of Harrow’s desire pressed tight against her. Gideon wasn’t even aware of the sounds that escaped as Harrow pressed against her folds, tongue tracing a slow trail from the bottom of her cunt up to her clit. Gideon felt the vibration of Harrow’s low groan, hands pulling Gideon into her mouth by her hips. 

Time slipped out of the equation and Gideon’s hands eventually found their way into Harrow’s hair. Her head tipped back and there was nothing in her universe except the pressure that grew in the pit of her and the feeling of Harrow all around her. She bled into Harrow. She would be okay if the other woman suddenly decided to swallow her whole. Harrow settled into a rhythm and Gideon couldn’t help herself. “Harrow, _please, more.”_

Her mouth slowed only slightly and Gideon could _feel_ her smile against her clit. A hand lifted from Gideon’s hips and all of a sudden she was inside Gideon. It was these moments, with as much of Harrow as she could possibly have, that she felt most like she was supposed to be here in this body. It was Harrow’s hands and breath and mouth and desire sliding inside of her that pulled like an anchor. 

Gideon was close, rocking and moaning into Harrow’s mouth and the steady sensation of Harrow’s fingers inside her. She could feel the wire of her muscles wrapping themselves tightly, a coiled spring that was Harrow’s to loosen. Harrow shifted the shape of her mouth, suction against Gideon’s clit and she was so close. “Don’t — don’t, don’t stop. _Harrow—”_

Harrow had asked to be here, had said _“Please, Gideon.”_ She had practically begged to be surrounded by Gideon, to fill up on the taste of her. The texture of Harrow’s desire fixed unsparingly on Gideon, the relentless pressure of her fingers, the pull of her mouth, the spring snapped and Gideon came. She cried out, shaking and curling onto Harrow. 

When the current finally broke Gideon’s body fell back into the bed. The combination of a brutal sparring session with this new rush of endorphins left her boneless and light headed. If she hadn’t been absolutely exhausted she might have come again when she opened her eyes and looked down at the woman between her legs. 

Harrow was leaning against one of her thighs, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. She was practically glowing, almost drunk off the feeling of Gideon cresting, breaking against her shore. She always looked so satisfied after Gideon came, like she’d won a prize nobody knew she was willing to fight till she was bloody to get. Seeing her bask in Gideon’s pleasure was a victory all by itself and Gideon wanted to curl up inside the fuzzy warmth of Harrow’s desire and let the whole world go soft and dark. 

“Come up here,” Gideon said and tried half heartedly to pull Harrow up towards her. 

Harrow put up no resistance, moving to lie next to Gideon. She turned on her side and kissed the other woman with a softness that Gideon would have never thought possible in the darkness of their Canaan house rooms. Harrow’s lips were still warm and covered in Gideon’s own desire and she let herself fall into Harrow over and over again. There was no urgency. This kiss could last as long as it needed to. Their world might end again someday, but right now the bed was soft and warm and morning was a long way away. 

“Did I spell it out clearly enough?” Harrow spoke, her lips still against Gideon’s. “You are something else with that sword.” 

Gideon smiled as her world started to get fuzzy around the edges. “All for you, my umbral liege. I’ll swing a sword for you any day.” 

Harrow’s hand stroked through bright red curls and Gideon’s thoughts began to drift away from her. As she fell into sleep Gideon thought she felt Harrow murmur something against her ear, but she couldn’t hear it. She leaned in, and passed out sound asleep on Harrow’s shoulder. They’d both sleep through the night tonight, safe in each others’ arms.


End file.
